24 Conflict Violence and Women’s Human Rights in India

Syed Alliya Anjum

Learning Aims

To understand how and why the conflict has affected women’s human rights in India, primarily due to enforced disappearances and sexual violence.
To identify the main human rights that are violated as a consequence.
To become introduced to the applicable international human rights law framework.
To identify and analyse the redressal mechanisms available and their effectiveness in providing gender-sensitive justice.

Background

“Women living in militarized regions, such as Jammu and Kashmir and the north-eastern states, live in a constant state of siege and surveillance, whether in their homes or in public. Information received through both written, and oral testimonies highlighted the use of mass rape, allegedly by members of the State security forces, as well as acts of enforced disappearance, killings and acts of torture and ill-treatment, which were used to intimidate and to counteract political opposition and insurgency. Testimonies also highlight the impact of that situation on women’s health, including psychological disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, fear psychosis and severe anxiety, with such conditions having a negative impact on women’s physical well-being. Additionally, the freedoms of movement, association and peaceful assembly are frequently restricted. The specific legal framework that governs those areas, namely, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and its variations, allows for the overriding of due process rights and nurtures a climate of impunity and a culture of both fear and resistance by citizens.”

In India, special security laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (herein AFSPA) have been in force for prolonged periods of time in several regions, most notably, in the North-Eastern states of India and in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). In Assam and Manipur AFSPA was enacted in 1958, and 1990 saw the introduction of the law in J&K, with the outbreak of armed insurgencies challenging the Indian state’s sovereignty in these states. This module will focus on how the use of AFSPA and other immunity laws have affected women and children’s human rights in these regions.

The vaguely formulated provisions of the AFSPA grant extraordinary powers to the Indian armed forces in these areas, including powers of shooting to kill and arrest on suspicion, while providing troops immunity from prosecution for acting in pursuance of these powers. According to human rights organizations, these laws have facilitated wide-ranging human rights abuses including torture, arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and sexual violence, etc., without accountability. Indian government appointed committees, human rights organizations and the UN, all have called for the repeal of AFSPA. For instance, In 2005, the government appointed Justice B. P. Jeevan Reddy Committee recommended the repeal of AFSPA, which is yet to be acted upon. According to Human Rights Watch, human rights violations have occurred in Manipur “with depressing regularity.” It further adds: “Torture, which includes beatings, electric shocks, and simulated drowning, is common. Arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial executions continue. New “disappearances” stopped after the Manipur government introduced a system for providing “arrest memos.” Women have been raped and murdered, children killed in crossfire and boys, as young as 14 have been detained and tortured by armed forces for suspicion of being militants.

In J&K, the situation is no different. Apart from AFSPA, special security laws like the Public Safety Act, 1978 (PSA) continue to be in force and feature provisions granting immunity from prosecution to troops for acts done under these laws resulting in human rights abuse. While all of these abuses have a gendered impact, the two violations that disproportionately affect women are enforced disappearances and conflict-related sexual violence. According to the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), 10,000 persons have been subject to enforced disappearance since 1989. By conservative estimates, this has resulted in the presence of over 1,500 women, also known as half-widows, whose husbands are disappeared but have not yet been declared deceased. Also, The International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK) established the presence of 2,943 bodies within 2,700 unmarked mass graves (some with multiple cadavers) in three districts of north Kashmir in 2009. Two more districts have been investigated by the IPTK since, taking the number to over 6,000 unmarked graves which hold the bodies of unknown people. Some, including the State Human Rights Commission, believe they might contain several of the disappeared persons.

Figure 1: Some of the many unidentified mass graves of Kashmir

Figure 2: Mass grave in Kharbagh, Kupwara, Kashmir

In Manipur, the incidence of disappearances had reportedly reduced in numbers since the mid-2000s. However, they continued to happen unabated.

Whilst hard documentation on the number of survivors of sexual violence is absent (due to the obvious impediments of the stigma attached to reporting such crimes, lack of specialized services, avenues for redress and fear of reprisals), human rights and media organizations have often highlighted its high incidence in Kashmir. One quantitative study conducted by Medicine Sans Frontiers in 2005 noted the unusually high occurrence of sexual violence in Kashmir since 1989, with 11.6% respondents saying they were themselves, victims of sexual violence, two-thirds had heard about rape, and one in seven had witnessed rape over the same time period.

Similarly, rape and sexual assault by security forces have routinely been reported from North-East India. For instance, in Assam’s Kokrajhar district, a deaf and dumb woman, was raped by the paramilitary in 2011 in front of her husband. NHRC went on to state: “because no appropriate action was taken so far to punish the culprits involved in previous incidents, the crimes have been repeated again and again in the district.” The famous murder and rape case of Thangjam Manorama from Manipur remains unredressed to date.

PART II: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW FRAMEWORK

Enforced Disappearances

The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, 2006, (CED) imposes specific obligations on state parties to prevent, investigate and punish cases of enforced disappearance. India signed CED on 6 February 2007 though it has not yet ratified it. As a signatory, India is under an obligation not to act contrary to the object and purpose of this treaty, as per the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969.

CED has laid down three constitutive elements of enforced disappearance under Article 2:

Arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty;
By agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State;
Refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.

The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in its General Comment has articulated that enforced disappearance is a “continuous offence” so long as the “perpetrators continue to conceal the fate and whereabouts of persons who have disappeared.” This is because the disappeared person is continuously deprived access to rights as long as he remains dispossessed of his liberty. Pertinently, any person “who has suffered harm as the direct result of an enforced disappearance,” is also considered a “victim” within the meaning of the Convention. Therefore, the female next of kin of the disappeared person are also victims of this continuous violation and are entitled to protections under the Convention.

Additionally, enforced disappearance violates a range of rights contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 (ICCPR) (See Table 1 below), which India ratified on 10 April 1979. The Human Rights Committee, the body responsible for monitoring state compliance with ICCPR, has concluded that disappearance and lack of contact with the outside world constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment, and therefore a violation of Article 7 for both the victim and the victim’s family. In other cases also, it held that prolonged incommunicado detention in an unknown location amounts to torture, cruel and inhuman treatment. Regional courts like the European Court of Human Rights, have also concluded that a mother’s “severe mental distress” caused due to the complacency of authorities regarding the disappearance of her son, also amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment.

Table 1: Rights Violated Due to Enforced Disappearance

RIGHTS VIOLATED	ICCPR	CED	CAT	GC PROTOCOL
Right to life	Art 6
Right to liberty	Art 9	Art 2
Right to know the truth about the disappeared relative		Art 24		Art 32
Right against torture and illtreatment	Art 7		Art 1 & 2
Right to family life	Art 17
Right to legal personality	Art 16
Right to fair trial	Art 14
Right to Effective Remedy	Art 2	Art 8

Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Against Women

Conflict-related sexual violence against Women has been the subject of many international and regional treaties and universal UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. One of the key instruments are the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which India is party to (since 9 September 1950). They provide specific guarantees against rape and other forms of sexual violence against women in an armed conflict. For instance, Geneva Convention IV provides that states are obligated to protect women against “any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution or any form of indecent assault.”

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which monitors implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 1979 (CEDAW) [ratified by India on September 13, 1993] mentions in its General Recommendation No. 19 (1992) that gender-based violence hampers the ability of women to enjoy rights on par with men. Hence, any kind of violence against women, including sexual violence perpetrated by public authorities amounts to discrimination against women and violates CEDAW provisions on non-discrimination. This reasoning can also be applied to the non-discrimination provisions of ICCPR and International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, 1966 (ICESCR), both of which India has been a party to since 1979.

The jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has also provided general guidance on the international legal principles on sexual violence by interpreting rape in armed conflict as an act of torture, a crime against humanity, and even genocide, when committed in certain circumstances.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1999 strengthened these conclusions by making rape and other sexual violence punishable as “war crimes,” and “crimes against humanity” “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at a civilian population.” Hence, international law places to rape and sexual violence in armed conflict in the category of the most serious crimes, when committed in a certain set of circumstances.

Further, a range of UN Resolutions specifically concern sexual violence in conflict and direct states to prevent and prosecute this abuse. Key resolutions include:

UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions:

UNSC Resolution 1960 (2010): Asks state parties to take time-bound commitments to combat sexual violence in armed conflict, including clear orders through chains of command to the effect, instructions in military manuals and codes of conduct, etc.
Resolution 1888 (2009) Among other things, it urges upon states to ensure access to justice for cases of sexual violence, and that survivors are treated with dignity in the redressal processes.
Resolution 1820 (2008): It demands adoption of disciplinary, training and vetting measures in the military to prevent sexual violence, apart from stressing the need for ensuring accountability and prosecution of personnel engaged in such crimes.
Resolution 1325 (2000) On Women and Peace and Security: It asks state parties to adopt special measures to protect women from rape and sexual violence in armed conflict, among other obligations.

UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolutions:

UNGA Resolution 62/134 (2008) ‘Eliminating rape and other forms of sexual violence in all their manifestations, including in conflict and related situations’:53 The resolution urges states to adopt measures to prevent sexual violence in armed conflict, to end impunity for it and to provide counselling and health services to survivors, among other things.
UNGA Resolution 3318 (1974): ‘Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict’:54 The Declaration makes a general plea towards states to comply with their obligations under international instruments and the Geneva Conventions for the protection of women and children in armed conflict. There is no reference to the special vulnerability of women to sexual violence during armed conflict.

PART III: GENDERED IMPACT OF CONFLICT

Enforced Disappearances from a Women’s Rights Paradigm

While it is acknowledged that the majority of the disappeared in Manipur and Kashmir are men it is a foregone conclusion that the women relatives of disappeared persons share this abuse. Not surprisingly CED also considers those who have suffered harm as a direct result of the disappearance, as victims.

Female relatives of the disappeared suffer a range of legal and social challenges, apart from difficulties of looking for the disappeared person. For instance, half-widows are deprived of basic social and legal safety nets after the disappearance of their husbands.

Legal Challenges: Whilst widows are entitled to a pension under a government-run social welfare scheme half-widows cannot claim the same as claimants must produce a death certificate to be eligible. They and other kin can also not access the government’s ex-gratia relief without a death certificate and proof that the deceased had no link with militancy. Further, under state law half-widows have to wait for 7 years (from the date they file a missing person’s FIR) before their husbands are declared dead. This prevents them from being able to remarry or inherit their husband’s property due to a widow.

Economic and Social Challenges: The fact that nearly all half-widows are from lower-income families and were entirely dependent on their husbands economically, makes their situation more precarious. With the breadwinners of the family gone, half-widows or other female kin of the disappeared are forced to step into the public sphere, often for the first time, which they may not be equipped to face, due to lack of education or other skills required to earn for the family.

Figure 4: Relatives of disappeared persons during a sit-in protest in Srinagar, Kashmir

In Kashmir in many cases, half-widows are deserted by their in-laws, who often also keep their children. This makes them dependent on their maternal families, which is culturally disapproved of. The imposed status of “single women” further forces social biases and vulnerability onto them in a patriarchal society.

Impact on Health: Many female relatives of the disappeared have been reported to suffer from trauma or depression. One study reveals that half-widows in Kashmir comprised 30-35% of the suicides in the first twenty years of the conflict.

The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, has highlighted the impact of living in a conflict-affected society on women’s health, including psychological disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, fear psychosis and severe anxiety. Such conditions have a significant negative impact on women’s physical and psychological well-being.

These hardships deprive these women of the right to dignified life (Art 6, ICCPR), right to compensation (Art 9(5), ICCPR), right to family life (Art 17, ICCPR), and lead to their discrimination (Art 26, ICCPR; Art 2, ICESCR) as they are deprived of rights owing to their gender. Notably, an enforced disappearance, amounts to an “arbitrary interference” in the family and home of the relatives within the meaning of Article 17 of ICCPR, since the deprivation of liberty is done in a manner that contravenes the “aims and objectives of the Covenant.”

Sexual Violence and Its Human Rights Implications

Since the early years of the conflict, sexual violence has regularly been reported in Kashmir and the North-East, often implicating the Indian armed forces. The lack of accountability for such violence has also been regularly highlighted in the media and by human rights organizations. Although some incidences of rape by non-state actors has also been reported, such instances are few and far between compared to those allegedly perpetrated by the state forces and which do not invite international legal obligations as state actors do.

The Kunan Poshpora rape is one of the oldest and most well-known incidents of rape in Kashmir. More than 30 women and girls from the twin villages of Kunan and Poshpora, were reportedly raped by armed forces on the same night during a search operation in February 1991. The eldest survivor was reported to have been 80 years old at the time of the incident. Some estimates place the number of rapes at as high as 100. Seven years after the institution of the case (2004) at the J&K State Human Rights Commission, it finally acknowledged in its 2011 order that the then Director of Prosecution had severely botched investigations to exonerate the involved armed forces. It subsequently ordered his prosecution. Although it did order compensation to the victims, it was silent on the guilt or prosecution of the soldiers involved. The compensation also remains unpaid.

More recently, on 30 May 2009, the bodies of the sister-in-law duo of Asiya (22 Years) and Neelofer (17 years) were found in a shallow stream in an area flanked by Police, paramilitary and Special Operations Group (unit comprised of renegade militants) encampments in Shopian, Kashmir. A post-mortem ordered in the wake of mounting public outrage confirmed rape. A judicial commission (instead of a criminal investigation) ordered by the Chief Minister also confirmed rape and murder. However, the Central Bureau of Investigation, to which the case was later handed for investigation, ruled out rape and attributed the deaths to drowning, a conclusion refuted by parallel investigations carried out by the J&K High Court Bar Association, and Indian civil society groups.

Other well-known examples of rape include the cases of Chanpora Pazipora (1990), Chak Saidpora (1992), Theno Budapathary Kangan (1994) Wavoosa in Srinagar (1997), the rape of a woman and her ten-year-old daughter in Handwara (2004), among others. Additionally, women were also reported to have been raped, sexually humiliated or molested for kinship ties or sympathies to suspected militants.

A recent Centre for Policy Analysis (CPA) report on the Kunan Poshpora case highlights the general and long-term social and psychological implications of sexual violence for women in Kashmir. Women from the villages have faced strained relations in their marital homes and ostracisation from a deeply patriarchal society, which considers women’s bodies a matter of family honour, and where loss of virginity and consensual or forced sex outside of marriage is stigmatized. Expectedly, unmarried women from these villages, who have experienced sexual violence, or are presumed to have experienced it, face trouble finding a match. The CPA report also states that the women suffer from trauma and require medical attention. It adds that many women also suffer from physical ailments and a dozen have had to undergo hysterectomies as a consequence of the violence.

In Manipur, there have also been multiple reports of rape. In his speech objecting to and calling for an end to AFSPA Mr Laishram Achaw Singh, an MP from Inner Manipur Parliamentary Constituency, himself referred to an incident where the widow of a tribal official was raped within her home after military personnel trespassed onto her property. The 2005 Government of India ‘Report of the Committee to Review the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958’ also documented several instances of rape and sexual violence. The report urged that such attacks violated the very dignity of people the forces are supposed to protect and thus called for the Act’s repeal. “Sexual violence was also reportedly committed by vigilante groups and police in the Naxalite conflict, while paramilitaries in the state of Manipur were accused of raping women.”

As mentioned before, the case of Thangjam Manorama gained a lot of popular and media attention, also because of the protests that followed. On 11th July 2004, a 32-year-old Manorama was abducted from her home by paramilitary forces widely agreed to be from the 17th Assam Rifles regiment. Manorama was forcibly taken from her home in the early hours of the night on suspicion of being a militant. “She was found dead the next morning, with marks on her genitals that suggested that she had suffered sexual violence before being killed.” On Manorama’s body “[t]here were scratch marks, a deep gash on her right thigh, probably made by a knife.” “There wasn’t a single bullet wound in Manorama’s legs. There were sixteen on her genitals.” It is widely believed that a large number of bullets that were fired at her genital region were deliberately targeted with the intention of destroying any evidence of sexual violence.

On 15th July around 30 women from Manipur held a naked protest outside the army barracks against what they perceived to be the ability of the army to rape and murder women with impunity under the special powers laws, demanding an inquiry and repeal of these laws. The official inquiry was conducted in 2004 but was not released for 10 years before being handed over to the Supreme Court in 2014. The inquiry revealed the “brutal and merciless torture” and killing of Manorama by the 17 Assam Rifles.” In December 2014 the Supreme Court ordered the government to pay Rs.10 lakhs as interim compensation to Manorama’s surviving mother, although no prosecutions have taken place.

These cases and their effects fully demonstrate that sexual violence against women is “incompatible with the dignity of human person,” and needs to be eliminated and accounted for as a violation of women’s fundamental human rights. As mentioned earlier, rape is a form of gender based-discrimination and denies a range of human rights to women. These include the right to life, right to liberty and security of person, the right to equality in the family, the right to highest standards of physical and mental health (Article 12, ICESCR). It has also been observed that rape satisfies the CAT definition of torture when used to obtain information or confession, or for any reason based on discrimination, or to punish, coerce or intimidate, and is performed by state agents or with their acquiescence. In those instances, it constitutes a violation of the right against torture, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Part IV: Available Redressal Mechanisms and Their Effectiveness

Barriers in Accessing Justice

The Indian Constitution guarantees the right to constitutional remedies to its citizens as a fundamental right. However, the redressal mechanisms for victims of enforced disappearance and sexual violence, fail to remedy these violations effectively, as the following paragraphs demonstrate.

FIRs: The first available remedy to the kin of a disappeared person is filing a “missing person’s report” or a First Information Report (FIR) with the concerned police station as per the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.P.C). In many cases, the police refuse to file FIRs, especially those that implicate the armed forces. This policy was institutionalized in 1992 when the J&K Home Department passed a circular directing the police to refuse to file FIRs against armed forces without permission from higher authorities and to refrain from recording accusations of their misconduct in the daily logs.

Habeas Corpus Petitions: Relatives can also file habeas corpus petitions, usually in the State High Court under Section 491 of Cr.P.C, which provides for filing petitions against extrajudicial detentions. A Yale Law School report details their fate: Usually, the state denies knowledge of the detainee. Court orders judicial inquiries on formal requests of the petitioner. On receiving inquiry findings, the High Court can either direct the police to file a FIR against the armed forces or, if it is found involved, order the government to pay compensation to the victim’s family, if they cannot produce the detainee. However, victims have received compensation in only a few cases, and FIRs were filed in even fewer cases.

Further, there is a pendency of thousands of habeas corpus petitions in Kashmir. Many favourable orders are not complied with by the authorities, and the court takes no action against those in contempt of its orders.

State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), Public Interest Litigations:

State response to sexual violence implicating the armed forces has ranged from denial to lack of meaningful redressal: The Kunan Poshpora rapes were dismissed by a single-member investigation of the Press Council of India, which exonerated security forces while questioning the women’s integrity. SHRC had recommended compensation to the survivors in 2011. The same was ordered by the J&K High Court, in a Public Interest Litigation instituted by a local human rights group for implementation of SHRC recommendations. Notably, the High Court had also ordered a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to conclude investigations into the case, “with reasonable dispatch.” However, the Supreme Court has recently stayed the case proceedings.

In the Shopian case the CBI’s upholding of the “death by drowning” theory, and ruling out of rape by its team of doctors and state-sponsored SIT, has effectively foreclosed any hope of a legal remedy in the case. Nonetheless, the circumstantial evidence and parallel civil society investigations coming to an opposite conclusion puts a question mark on the official version of facts.

Court Martials and Sanctions: Soldiers accused of rights violations, including rape have the option of being tried in a court-martial rather than criminal courts. In almost all cases, where the question of trial arises, the armed forces choose court-martials, which lack transparency. For instance, in the Handwara case, after public anger, the army instituted court-martial proceedings, and acquitted the accused major of rape charges, although it ordered his dismissal from service on less serious grounds. There are hardly any cases of court-martial sentencing beyond dismissal or suspension.

Further, for sanctions sought for prosecutions under AFSPA, the result has been complete impunity. No sanctions were granted in any of the cases where they were sought by the state government.

The 4As of Accessibility of Justice: Apart from these institutional barriers, there are other obstacles in accessing justice, which, as a number of scholars have pointed out, need consideration. Due attention has to be paid to these broader structural, economic and social factors in understanding accessibility of justice holistically. They are:

Geographical accessibility: A considerable number of the cases mentioned above are located outside of the state capital, where most of the administrative headquarters, the court of appeal and State Human Rights Commission are located. This distance makes it almost impossible for the survivors or their families to access and seek justice.

Financial accessibility: Almost all cases of human rights violations concern lower-income families, who find it financially challenging to pursue justice in courts. The financial implications of travelling long distances are also not relieved. The prospect of a heavy financial burden deters survivors from taking a decision to initiate or pursue judicial proceedings.

Cultural accessibility: Reporting sexual violence is especially challenging considering the stigma it carries in a deeply patriarchal society like South Asia. Even a decision to institute a legal process in courts is socially significant, given that it is usually considered a long-drawn and expensive procedure, hence representing an obstacle in accessing justice.

Information accessibility: Usually, victims lack education on the legal avenues and options of legal aid available to them. Also, there is no serious effort by the government to enhance human rights education and awareness in the region. This lack of information acts as a serious impediment for survivors to seek justice in the first place.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its report on ‘Strengthening Judicial Integrity through Enhanced Access to Justice’ stated: “access to justice involves normative legal protection, legal awareness, legal aid and counsel, adjudication, enforcement, and civil society oversight.” In the context of Kashmiri women, these requirements are seriously lacking as the preceding discussion makes clear. Institutional impediments make the situation even grimmer.

PART V: CONCLUSION

The J&K govern ment’s State Human Rights Commis sion confirm ed the presence of 2,156 unidentified bodies in the mass graves of Kashmir and ordered compensation to the victims. 122 Despite this, no serious efforts in identifying the bodies, and payment of compensation to the families has been made. Whether in Kashmir or in the North-East, there has also not been any recognition of the economic and legal hardships faced by the female next-of-kin of the disappeared persons. For instance, the requirement of death certificates for granting ex-gratia relief or pension to the half-widows has not been waived, nor has the woefully long waiting period of seven years in declaring a disappeared person dead been reduced. This leaves the women of the affected families in a legal limbo that negatively affects their lives and that of their children.

Similarly, in case of conflict-related sexual violence, the state’s attitude has been of denial and impunity. The failure of recognizing sexual violence by public authorities ignores the fact that “all forms of violence against women seriously violate and impair or nullify the enjoyment by women of all human rights and fundamental freedoms and constitute a major impediment to the ability of women to make use of their capabilities.” It also deprives the affected women or families of closure, redressal and reparations, which are their right. The state has acted in a gender-blind fashion, in not paying any attention to the psycho-social counselling, financial assistance or providing skills to the affected families. These efforts, which are required by the state under its obligations to “respect, protect and fulfil” human rights are, therefore, seriously lacking.

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